Simond Posted January 3, 2022 Share Posted January 3, 2022 I think I’d go for fibreglass. It’ll mean making a mould (perhaps for a quarter of one tower) then casting as many parts as needed & bonding them together, but they can be ultra-thin, and really quite light - and importantly, they’ll stand up to the rigours of a travelling exhibition. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradfordbuffer Posted January 3, 2022 Share Posted January 3, 2022 You will have to have the set up for mgr unloading shed at power Station to go with your cooling tower's that was at railriders layout at York as a loaded train entered a identical empty mgr and matching loco emerges at the same speed and at same time loaded train disappeared in to scenery from shed! , very convincing, if distant memory serves me well I think it was in N gauge? would be impossibly large in 7mm!, but then again somebody probably said you can't make a scale model of ...... 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueeighties Posted January 3, 2022 Share Posted January 3, 2022 3 hours ago, HeatonLodge40 said: I’ve been giving this idea a lot of thought. It’s finding a material that can be made into the basic cooling tower shape, is light enough for two people to carry and stays in shape and doesn’t bow. Possibly aluminium sheet? Not sure. 6m is a tad high but 3m high is doable I think. These basic MPD sheds are big enough and I’ve a load more to build yet.! Going to add drainpipes, change the roof structure to corrugated iron, ladders and air conditioning units for starters. I'm sure I saw an article in a mag, the name of which currently escapes me, about a retired Indian civil engineer who's hobby was fashioning large cylindrical model based structures from old, large industrial kitchen cooking pots. I'll see if I can dig it out. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium St Enodoc Posted January 3, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3, 2022 4 hours ago, HeatonLodge40 said: air conditioning units Heaters and extractor fans are more likely than air conditioning I reckon. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ikcdab Posted January 3, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 3, 2022 On 23/12/2021 at 13:02, HeatonLodge40 said: Next stop is the South West - probably Bristol. If anyone knows of a venue big enough (that isn’t £25,000 a day in that location) - I’d be extremely grateful to know about it. Much bigger exhibition next time with all the trade & lots more layouts. 100% for the Bath and West Showground site. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradfordbuffer Posted January 3, 2022 Share Posted January 3, 2022 2 hours ago, bradfordbuffer said: You will have to have the set up for mgr unloading shed at power Station to go with your cooling tower's that was at railriders layout at York as a loaded train entered a identical empty mgr and matching loco emerges at the same speed and at same time loaded train disappeared in to scenery from shed! , very convincing, if distant memory serves me well I think it was in N gauge? would be impossibly large in 7mm!, but then again somebody probably said you can't make a scale model of ...... Does any one have a vid of the coal unloading at rail riders? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatonLodge40 Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 12 hours ago, Simond said: I think I’d go for fibreglass. It’ll mean making a mould (perhaps for a quarter of one tower) then casting as many parts as needed & bonding them together, but they can be ultra-thin, and really quite light - and importantly, they’ll stand up to the rigours of a travelling exhibition. I think that is the best idea yet Simon. Thanks! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatonLodge40 Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 In other news after trawling the net for hours I’ve finally found enough working searchlights for the lighting gantry towers. These are from a company on Amazon called Evemodel who seem to do dozens of lighting related bits for model railways. At £15.99 for 5 they are great value. I went for the OO size as the O are overscale in my opinion. Trouble is I need minimum 30 for each gantry! And there’s 7 gantry’s. 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ianLMS Posted January 4, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 4, 2022 (edited) Yoy could upscale this to 7mm to give u a template and replace the card with laser cut mdf components? Might need to soak the wood to form the curves. Seen it done on you-tube!! https://energeer.co.uk/scale-models/cooling-tower-model/ Edited January 4, 2022 by ianLMS Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simond Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 er, if you want Drax, you're going to do more than scale up an undersize N gauge one! https://www.drax.com/power-generation/inside-cooling-tower-looks-like-no-place-earth/ Standing at over 114 metres high, each of Drax’s 12 cooling towers are 86 metres in diameter at their base, 53 metres at their summit, and could comfortably fit the Statue of Liberty inside. Everything about them is huge, but they are not the unsophisticated masses of concrete they appear from afar. “Look at a cooling tower and you might think it’s a substantial, thick structure. It’s not,” explains Nick Smith, a civil engineer at Drax. “It’s basically like an egg shell. It is the shape that gives it its strength.” For the majority of their height, a typical cooling tower is between just 178 and 180 mm – or 7 inches – thick. Even for a modeller like Simon, who clearly isn't scared of doing stuff on a grand scale, I think 2.6m high, and 2m diameter at the base might be a bit of a challenge... more here https://www.ft.com/content/1a1d5f45-c699-4876-af21-fe02c9cb998a Ratcliffe and Didcot were similar, maybe a bit bigger... 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted January 4, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 4, 2022 (edited) 35 minutes ago, Simond said: Standing at over 114 metres high, each of Drax’s 12 cooling towers are 86 metres in diameter at their base, 53 metres at their summit, That's going to need its own framework to hold it at baseboard height. I make it 2 metres diameter by about 2.7 metres high. Edited January 4, 2022 by TheSignalEngineer Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eastwestdivide Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 1 hour ago, Simond said: Standing at over 114 metres high, each of Drax’s 12 cooling towers are 86 metres in diameter at their base, 53 metres at their summit The Tinsley Towers by the M1 were only 76 m high, according to an extensive (2 mins) internet search. That might bring things down to a manageable scale? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PaulCheffus Posted January 4, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 4, 2022 On 02/01/2022 at 18:32, HeatonLodge40 said: Great idea!! Hi Just be aware those machines can leave a film on everything. I used to work for one of the manufacturers. Cheers Paul 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradfordbuffer Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 1 hour ago, eastwestdivide said: The Tinsley Towers by the M1 were only 76 m high, according to an extensive (2 mins) internet search. That might bring things down to a manageable scale? I've got the solution to the hight issue! Model them post demolition! Couple of inches of tangled steel rebar and crushed concrete Sorry!....I'll get back in my box now... 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post HeatonLodge40 Posted January 4, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 4, 2022 Today I’ve put cooling towers to the back of my mind and been experimenting with a prototype lighting gantry. This has taken about 5 hrs to get to this stage. Soldering iron didn’t work (brass too thick) so resorted to a blow torch and lots of solder but it wasn’t easy. I melted 3 expensive clamps for starters. In the end I’ve decided to solder the 4 corners (brass angle) to a brass sheet and hot glue all the supporting girders. I’ll go around these at the end and tidy up the remaining hot glue of which there are many dollops. Looking at photos of the real thing there are resting islands at the top of each internal ladder so I reckon on using steel sheet for these. It’s taking shape though, not bad for a first effort. The actual lighting itself and all the paraphernalia around it will be the hard bit! Meanwhile the MPD has had the sanding treatment and once the ladders/aircon/heating units and corrugated iron are added it will get the Halfords primer treatment 23 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongRail Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Probably too much material for soldering probably worth looking at brazing Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simond Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 (edited) Weller 80W with a 10mm Wedge bit or an RSU! Edited January 5, 2022 by Simond Miss Type, or Smellchequer 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Train Posted January 11, 2022 Share Posted January 11, 2022 Superb work SImon and congratualtions on a successful first outing. Seeing all those flight cases brought back happy memories of an earlier life and knowing how much I spent on mine 15 years ago, I know there is an impressive investment there. Looking forward to this coming "dahn sarf". Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crisis Rail Posted January 12, 2022 Share Posted January 12, 2022 On 04/12/2021 at 15:36, Damo666 said: BBC Dramatic headlines: "Huge model railway hidden from girlfriend unvieled" (BBC News Main Page) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-59531846 Maybe she should have visited RMWeb? Bit late to the party as usual with this - he mustn't have seen much of the GF. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 12, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 12, 2022 On 04/01/2022 at 22:17, Simond said: Weller 80W with a 10mm Wedge bit or an RSU! Another vote for the RSU. Bear in mind that hot glue becomes less of a glue in a warm to hot exhibition hall, wouldn't trust it on such small joints personally. Mike. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatonLodge40 Posted January 13, 2022 Share Posted January 13, 2022 Well the second tower is coming along nicely. I still can’t get the solder to adhere to the brass even with a 100W iron. So I’m back to a blowtorch and a lot of flux. It’s works well if you heat up the brass first.. 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeatonLodge40 Posted January 13, 2022 Share Posted January 13, 2022 On another note regarding the next outing for HLJ - I’ll be posting the details on Monday. Much larger event this one with hopefully a good number of multi scale layouts, lots of trade etc Its not long either - Friday/Saturday/Sunday April 8/9/10th 11 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 13, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 13, 2022 2 minutes ago, HeatonLodge40 said: On another note regarding the next outing for HLJ - I’ll be posting the details on Monday. Much larger event this one with hopefully a good number of multi scale layouts, lots of trade etc Its not long either - Friday/Saturday/Sunday April 8/9/10th Finger poised over the Ryanair website! Mike. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted January 13, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 13, 2022 5 minutes ago, HeatonLodge40 said: Well the second tower is coming along nicely. I still can’t get the solder to adhere to the brass even with a 100W iron. So I’m back to a blowtorch and a lot of flux. It’s works well if you heat up the brass first.. I know it may seem an obvious question. Have you cleaned the brass first - it looks quite tarnished. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferret1956 Posted January 13, 2022 Share Posted January 13, 2022 3 minutes ago, HeatonLodge40 said: I still can’t get the solder to adhere to the brass even with a 100W iron. Just a point... Ive had brass section with some sort of coating. This stopppedv solder penetrating, and once heated, changed its composition or something and just sat there! No penetration or flow. I assume the blow torch totally blasts the stuff (if any is there) away. A 100W iron should cope... Have you tried an active flux, and also tinning the parts then sweating them together? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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